


it’s a free ride when you’ve already paid

by fayevsessays



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-12
Updated: 2011-05-12
Packaged: 2017-10-19 07:37:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/198483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fayevsessays/pseuds/fayevsessays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brittany and Quinn talk and come to an understanding. “You’re really dumb sometimes, Quinn.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	it’s a free ride when you’ve already paid

**Author's Note:**

> My fill for adventurefilled in the glee-rare-pairs exchange on livejournal. The prompt being: Quinn/Brittany: "You're really dumb sometimes, Quinn."

~

Brittany’s smile is weaker but Quinn can tell she’s trying to brighten it just for her. Trying to fool her into seeing that everything is okay when it’s written all over her face that it’s not.

“Do you want to work on the glee assignment with me?” Brittany asks.

There’s a slew of ready replies waiting for her disposal in her mind. About Brittany not really speaking to her in the last few weeks since Regionals, spouting that shouldn’t she be working with Artie? Or better yet, Santana?

Except Brittany has been avoiding people for days. Disappearing in corridors, running from wheelchairs and avoiding her locker at all costs. Not just her locker, everyone’s lockers. Like she’s scared of the metal containers.

Really when Mr Schuester told them to keep on working on original songs in preparation for Nationals, Quinn had hoped that she’d get to work with Finn or even Mercedes.

“Sure.” She smiles slowly.

Then again, she’s never been able to say ‘no’ to Brittany.

~

 

“What rhymes with spicy?”

“Dicey.”

“Hmm.”

Brittany has been interrupting her every few minutes asking for help with her original song. Not enough to make her regret offering to work with the girl. That is a feat deemed impossible now that Quinn is running low on female friends she hasn’t pissed off, combined with Brittany looking so sad lately.

Which is why they’re lounging on Brittany’s bed, notepads in front of them, writing down various drafts and lines that could eventually create songs. Quinn has hers in her lap and has been staring at a mostly blank page for the better part of an hour. Brittany is laying on her stomach, her legs swishing in the air while she randomly doodles and jots down the words Quinn gives her.

Quinn is pretty sure that Brittany will end up writing a song about her cat Charity. Heck, she’s even considering it. No words are coming to her, which is throwing her off after the sessions she’s had with Rachel. Not that she wants to throw herself into that again, not after Rachel ditched her to write their showstopping solo for Regionals. Quinn is mentally taking credit for that because she knows it was her push that did it.

Somehow that doesn’t take the small sting of having Rachel walk out away from her. Even though that’s exactly what she wanted.

“Quinn? What rhymes with window?”

Quinn puts her own rhyming dictionary down. Brittany shrugs at her. The pages of her own book are unseen. Probably left behind in the choir room last week.

“Who are you writing that about?” Quinn asks and before she’s even finished Brittany spits out;

“Artie.”

Brittany has forced her to wear a hat while they compose. It itches and is definitely not working as a thinking cap as Brittany had pressed. Also, it has pineapples on it. “Sure.”

Brittany shifts on her stomach. Her loose tank top bunches around her breasts and Quinn is pretty sure she’s somehow lost her sports bra since they came home. She rolls her eyes.

“Do you need something to rhyme with wheels?” Quinn smirks as Brittany freezes.

The grey tank top has ‘WMHS Track and Field’ stamped over the chest. That’s a new development. Finn had filled her in about Brittany joining the team about a week ago. Something about keeping fit. Quinn had scoffed to herself. As if Brittany needs to keep in shape.

Brittany scribbles out something on her page and Quinn hears mumbles of ‘she doesn’t have wheels’ before Brittany sighs and props her head on her palm. Her elbow digs into the mattress.

“This is ridiculous.” Quinn glances down angrily at the words on her notepad. Unconnected. Unemotional. Subpar. She’s written better text messages.

“I’m sorry.” A squeak immediately replies. Snapping out of her own self-depreciation for a second gives her time to register the sudden meekness in Brittany’s tone. “I’ll stop asking you for words. Or we could do something else. Do you want to watch a movie?”

Quinn flubs her ability to form words momentarily while Brittany looks at her with those wide and worried eyes, and a pinching grip on the end of Quinn’s skirt.

Any other time she would have rolled her eyes and removed Brittany’s hand from her clothes, knowing that an unstopped touch would usually end up with Brittany wrapped around her.

“Sorry Britt, I didn’t mean you.” The girl’s back lowers again, pushing her stomach back onto bed, Quinn didn’t even notice. Tension seeps away again.

“Oh.” Brittany looks down at her novelty pen. The multi-coloured elastic strings atop of it bob as she waves it from side to side. The doodles produced from the pen are coloured in between lines of a song that Quinn knows for sure won’t end up about Artie. “Do you need help?”

“Definitely not.” From you, anyway, her mind echoes. Her heart chides her for thinking such cruel words. The tug of war between the two organs starts up once more.

To be a bitch, or not to be?

Quinn smooths her dress out. Is that really the question though? Mentally she can filter, alter and stop. Channelling her inner-bitch is not something that comes naturally, it’s not something she becomes almost entirely - like Santana - but a skill she wields.

“I meant with what’s stopping you from writing your song.” Brittany clarifies. It helps that she didn’t pick up on the rejection or unwillingness Quinn projected about Brittany helping her to do anything that involved writing seriously.

She twirls her pen like a miniature baton and smiles at Quinn again. “There’s something right?”

If Quinn’s secret super power is her ability to transform into a bitch (and Santana’s is to sometimes possess feelings), then there’s no doubt that Brittany’s is her perception.

She would go further and say intelligence, but she’s still answering a lot of maths questions with the square root of rainbows. That being said, the girl isn’t failing either.

“It’s nothing. Nothing, just-” Shaking her head doesn’t shift the things in her mind anymore than wearing Brittany’s pineapple thinking hat is helping her to write. She’s stuck in a cycle of thoughts that get heavier each day.

“Just?”

“Nothing. I said.”

“You said ‘just’. There’s something.” Brittany’s cheeks flush because she’s caught Quinn out. “You can tell me.”

The last time she succumbed to Brittany’s trust-in-me vibe Quinn found herself showing her a positive pregnancy test and listening to Santana yell obscenities at her for the rest of the week. She can still hear the screaming if she listens in her head long enough.

Her hands flutter over her stomach protectively and she half expects Brittany to think she’s pregnant again.

“Quinn?”

No. This year is different. She’s doing things right. She’s...

“...back with Finn and we’ve moved on. We’ve talked about Puck and last year and Sam. It’s okay.” Quinn affirms with as much determination as possible while Brittany nods like she expected Quinn to crack.

“I’m happy with him.” Quinn’s voice slips out of her control. A crackle.

“Are you?” Brittany jumps on it.

“Stop.” Quinn lowers her voice. “Stop, that was an accident.”

“But your voice...”

The crack, the slip of emotion- Quinn realizes is familiar to them both. She can’t dwell.

“I just feel like he’s not as happy.” Quinn quietly admits. She remembers walking with him in the hall before Regionals and listening him trying to delay coming clean with their relationship. Something he still hasn’t done. The hurt feeling in her chest then is nothing compared to now, knowing that they’re still hiding from their friends for the sake of one person.  
“I’m doing everything I can to fix things. I’m helping his grades up, keeping my own average high, watching his practices and games, helping him with songs-”

Brittany taps her pen on her paper. “Isn’t that Rachel’s job?”

Quinn sits up straighter against the backboard of Brittany’s bed. “That.”

“What?” Brittany looks behind her, where she thinks Quinn is looking. “What? Is there a snake?”

“No, gosh-” Quinn grits her teeth. “That. Rachel.”

Brittany stops looking for the non-existent snake.

“Despite everything I’m doing. The dates we go on, or how long I act interested in the things he likes - for the record XBox is not all that - she’s always there.” Quinn fires out. “She’s always on his mind.”

There’s like a tarnish on the face of their relationship. Permanently in the background. Watching. Talking. Reaching out to them both.

“She is in glee with us.” Brittany has stopped twirling her pen.

“It’s not glee. It’s not about glee. It’s about how Finn shouldn’t care whether Rachel knows that we’re together. And how them continuing to...to canoodle in the background is affecting my relationship with him.” Quinn hates how her heart asks her ‘how exactly it affects her’ instead of automatically agreeing like she wants it to.  
“And it’s hurting out chances of making prom king and queen.”

Brittany hums. “Why?” There’s a second absence of her usual aloof nature before it returns. “I mean, you and Rachel are different canoes.”

Confusion fights its way onto Brittany’s face as she mutters the word ‘canoes’ again. Quinn mentally notes never to use the word ‘canoodling’ in front of Brittany as Brittany attempts to make the sentence sound better by replacing ‘canoes’ with the word ‘ships’ instead.

“Britt,” Quinn sighs. “It’s not a case of us being different...people. Finn is my boyfriend. Not Rachel’s.” It feels weird to say her name and not a nickname. She’s working on this being nice to her again, even if she doesn’t know it and Quinn doesn’t publicly acknowledge it. “So he can’t, therefore, have his cake and eat it.”

It’s hypocritical to think how she is right now. All things considered; Puck, Sam, Finn. But it’s her head over her heart again, and she misses the last year - before she screwed up with Puck - when she knew Rachel didn’t have a shot in hell with Finn. And when Finn was oblivious to her existence.

“Cake? We’re talking about Rachel.” Brittany rests her head in her palm. “Besides, didn’t they date last year?”

Sometimes Quinn wonders if Brittany forgets these things on purpose, just for kicks.

“Not anymore. Finn and Rachel dancing around each other, when he’s with me is...”

Cheating is the word on the tip of her tongue but she can’t justify using it when she herself stands accused.

“...wrong.”

Her declaration stills them both.

She eyes Brittany’s light green duvet to ignore the notches on her bedpost. One is newer, but the first - as it has been for the last 2 years - that Quinn eventually looks upon, will always be the deepest.

“Because he’s with you.” Brittany reasons. There’s a hollow question in her words that Quinn latches onto.

“Yeah.”

Quinn doesn’t expect this to force Brittany to gaze down or bite her lip with what looks like blood drawing pressure. The knowledge in her answer, meaningless to herself, is apparently not to Brittany.

Her heart lurches over the fact, and the subsequent implication, that Brittany is caught up in a similar web of deceit. Her mind reasons that this is the reasons she’s the one here, sitting on Brittany’s bed, while Brittany avoids the two other options she would have considered before her.

Flecks of the bedroom light illuminate the dark circles under Brittany’s eyes. They’ve been there the whole night but Quinn is finally noticing. It was a trend she started.

The old her, the one that still fights to fully control her thoughts, wants Brittany to tell her everything and then snap out of this funk.

When she shifts in her spot though, and her blouse tightens around her waist uncomfortably, she relents.

Maybe the question isn’t whether or not to be a bitch, but whether or not to be vulnerable.

She doesn’t want to press for questions, but she doesn’t want this moment of exposure to be ignored, especially since there are already people doing that for them.

She softens. “Do you want to grab a snack before we try this thing again?”

~

 

Grabbing a snack turns into baking cookies that almost turns into a food fight.

Brittany manages to douse her skirt in a small amount of flour before Quinn shrieks about everything being perfectly measured.

Luckily Brittany gets too distracted by the recipe to ask Quinn why she called her ‘Puck’.

~

 

Brittany Pierce Doesn’t understand why you can’t play ‘Never have I ever’ using cookies.  
2 minutes ago · Like · Comment

 

Quinn Fabray Cookies don’t get you drunk B.  
3 minutes ago · Like · Comment

 

Brittany Pierce What about brownies?  
5 minutes ago · Like · Comment

Quinn Fabray Wrong type of brownies.  
8 minutes ago · Noah ‘Puck’ Puckerman, Santana Lopez and 3 others ‘like’ this · Comment

 

 

~

 

Things don’t feel as heavy when she can still taste cookies and chocolate in her mouth. It’s even harder when Brittany still has crumbs around her mouth that she’s laughing over while Quinn tries to tell her where they are.

However the heaviness returns when the light laughter dies down.

“Can I ask you something?” Brittany licks her lips, and the last of the cookies they made disappears.

Quinn settles back into her previous position, sitting against the headboard of Brittany’s bed, only with a little more relaxation in her form. Brittany differs. Sitting indian style at the bottom of her bed. Her back just grazing the notches on her bedpost.

“I don’t know how they get the jam in doughnuts B.” She quips playfully. A mystery to them all.

Without missing a beat, Brittany scrunches her nose contently. Aware that Quinn is teasing her, seriously or not. “It’s not that, but seriously we should google it.”

Brittany’s laptop is hiding under her pillow, next to Quinn, who has half a mind to pull it out and distract them both with the secrets of doughnuts. The sudden straightness in Brittany’s back stops her. It’s not unusual but the form signifies that things are about to sober up.

Knowing this makes Quinn a little hesitant when she asks; “Whats up?”

Immediately Brittany’s glance falls to her own lap. Staring at her hands and her fingers twisting around each other. Nervously.

“Why did you say you’d help me today?” She asks quietly. In a tone that is both wondering and full of hurt.

It confuses her greatly to hear hurt there. How did saying ‘yes’ inflict that on Brittany?

“What? B, you asked me to.” Quinn tilts her head. “I thought you wanted to write with me.” It feels like a lie is spilling from her lips, when in reality she’s trying to decipher Brittany’s motions. Sure it’s strange that Brittany asked her, because apart from some brief conversations, they haven’t been close so much since quitting Cheerios.

Brittany shrugs. “You could have said no.”

“You’re my friend. I’d rather work with you that someone who isn’t.” Quinn presses emphasising ‘friend’ in order to see a small shimmer appear in her face. At first she thinks it’s happiness, it appears is a smirk in the end.

Slowly Brittany claims; “Oh, so you don’t hate Rachel.”

Oh that was clever. “Hold on.” Damn, she’s been played. By Brittany. “This topic has jumped.”

Their notepads are piled on top of each other, where they left them in the rush to go and retrieve snacks. Brittany separates them and flips hers open on the page she’d been drawing and writing on. “You guys wrote a song together.”

A hot flush of annoyance creeps up Quinn’s neck. There’s a blush of guilt there as well.

“We tried to, there’s a difference.” She grinds out.

But Brittany doesn’t relent with the ammo Quinn has accidentally given her. “And seen as you only write songs with your friends...”

 

No. Quinn’s eyebrows fly up in mild offense. Nuh Uh. “You stop that train of thought right now.”

“You two are totally friends.” Brittany voices in amusement.

“We’re not friends.” She can feel the irritation building faster and as much as she doesn’t want to snap at Brittany, or have word of her snapping at her make it back to Santana, it’s getting much harder to stop herself.

“Quinn, you just said.”

Snap. “We’re not. We’re not. We never will be either. I’m a bitch to her.” She’s getting a tingle in her hand that misses the weight of a slushie in her hand. An itch she hasn’t had for months. “I’ve taken Finn from her, and rubbed it in her face-”

It disorientates them both. Brittany tries to understand. “But you guys wrote that awesome song for Regionals.”

“We didn’t. Rachel wrote that on her own.” Her mind, closely linked to her pride, throws a small fitful tantrum when she finally admits it. In contrast a weight on her heart lifts. She hadn’t told anyone that their attempt to write a song together had fizzled into non-existence after Quinn had attacked her verbally. Rachel, despite her chances as well, hadn’t disclosed their failure either.

“I’m not a good person Brittany.” Quinn stutters out. “I try to be. I’ve tried to get it right this year. I rejoined Cheerios, I studied, I dated Sam, avoided Puck. I even stopped tormenting people as much. But I still manage to screw up.”

No Cheerios. No potential scholarships. No secure relationship. No song.

“Why didn’t you write the song with Rachel then?” Curiosity. A simple start. It strikes a note inside of her, taking her back behind the piano in the auditorium as she watched Rachel leave. It hurts now in hindsight to think that the hunch in her shoulder was the beginning of the girl’s tears and the start of her song.

Honesty. “Because we were never meant to. I faked it all. Pretending to be her friend, sticking up for her in Glee, I even met her-” Rachel had taken her into her home in trust. The barrier between pretending to be her friend and actually being one was thin and almost invisible. “All of it was just to appease Finn while keeping an eye on her.”

“But...” That’s mean, she hears in Brittany’s tone. She won’t ever say it to her face, but Quinn gets it.

“I hurt her. I’ve always hurt her Brittany. That’s the way our relationship works. She’s at the bottom, I’m at the top. Which it where I’ll stay right up until we leave this place.”

“Did you tell her?” Brittany asks. Quinn nods.

“What everyone knows? How she’s going to get out of this cow town and prove us all wrong?” Quinn asks bitterly.

“How I’m going to stay here and marry Finn a few months out of college? Get a decent job-” Real estate Agent.  
“- while he works for Burt Hummel. How we’ll start talking about kids and I’ll always push it away until he hits breaking point and brings Puck up. It’ll all go downhill from there but we don’t get divorced because we’re both to concerned with what people will think if we do.”

If the plan sounded dull and lifeless when she recounted it to Rachel, admitting it to Brittany makes her feel sick to her stomach.

There’s a sympathy in Brittany’s eyes now.

It makes Quinn choke on her next admission.

“...and then one day, we’ll turn on the TV to some late night talk show and see her walking out, all smiles and success. Like we never even happened.” Her eyes sting against her will. She won’t let herself cry. She didn’t cry in front of Rachel, she won’t cry here. “She can’t have Finn on top of all of that. Not when she already wants so much.”

“Quinn. That’s not true.” Brittany breaks tentatively.

No. She will not feel sorry for her. Not when she knows Rachel is going to get exactly what she wants while the rest of them will probably only be able to watch on enviously. “It’s fair.”

“No it’s not.” Brittany argues.

Fairness. Her opposition to her words resonates inside her fiercely. Brittany does not get to lecture her about whether something is fair or not.

Quinn’s head snaps up with a glare that hasn’t been wielded against Brittany in a long time.“Why am I here then B? Why am I the one here with you tonight?”

The desired affect blooms. Brittany’s face reddens until the whites of her large eyes are brighter and watering. Caught out is her own balancing scale and game of fairness. Quinn abuses this knowledge.

“Think about that and tell me whether or not asking me here tonight was fair on anyone.”

It’s not fair to her. It’s not fair that Brittany asked her here instead of making a harder choice between her best friend or her boyfriend. And it’s certainly not fair that Quinn had to hear from Mercedes that apparently that choice between Santana or Artie runs much deeper than whether or not to write a song together.

It’s not fair that Artie doesn’t know. It’s not fair that Santana isn’t spending time with her and it’s not fair that Brittany has to choose.

Full circle. Quinn inhales too quickly. She didn’t mean that.

“I’m sorry. That was out of line.” Her apologetic whisper burns her throat. Her heart sighs in disappointment.

“You’re really dumb sometimes Quinn.” Brittany’s monotonous declaration stuns her. Brittany. Brittany has just called her dumb.

Once the initial shock passes for them both, the words become stronger and more impassioned. There’s a dent in Brittany’s forehead from concentration. Quinn finds herself unable to do anything other than listen.

“You’re so worried about all of these things that aren’t going to matter. Prom, Finn, being nice to Rachel . It’s not even going to matter Quinn.”

If only Quinn could read her mind and see what Brittany doesn’t think will matter to her. And what will, just so she can find out what she needs to hold onto and the choices they need to make.

“Just like math. Math isn’t going to matter after high school. I don’t need algebra to dance but everyone has to learn it. Even for a little while.”

The accusing irritation in her voice vanishes. “Is that a metaphor?”

Brittany goes back to twisting her fingers and looking down at her notepad. “It doesn’t matter.”

The world would be simpler if people could live by Brittany’s logic. If things really didn’t matter after high school. If Quinn could really believe that she’d never have to be defined by how she lived her life in these years. Beth. Glee. The Cheerios. Her mom and dad. Being homeless for the better part of a year. High school will matter.

“You don’t know what kind of pressure I’m under right now B.” She settles for.

Brittany lifts herself up and closes the distance between them. Sitting again, in front of Quinn, with their knees almost touching. “What’s there to be repressed about? We don’t have Cheerios-”

No Coach is a plus, but no scholarship isn’t.

“-glee is fun-” Nationals is stressing her out.

“Is it classes? They’re sometimes hard.”

Brittany reaches out like she did earlier. Fingers brushing against her knee comfortingly.

“Stressed.” Not repressed. Quinn thinks. “I’m stressed about everything. Especially prom. At this rate, with Finn, I’m not even going to enjoy that.”

She’s too caught up in the processes. What she’s going to wear, who she’s got to talk to and how to present herself in order to snag that crown and get her mom to smile at her, without hindering. She can’t even imagine herself actually having fun at prom.

“What’s there to worry about? You’re totally going to win Prom Quinn.” Quinn doesn’t correct her mistake. Brittany’s palm rests flat on her knee. “There’s like, no one else running.”

This is new information. “Santana?” Quinn asks. She slips and actually says the ‘S’ word. Brittany’s hand is off her in an instant.

“She’s not.”

“Why?” Quinn prys. No use backtracking and forgetting that they shouldn’t talk about her.

She gets a small shrug. “Sam asked her about it, but she just said something about shoving the pointy end of the-”

“Okay!”

“I’m serious, you’re shoe-d in.” Again Quinn refrains from correcting Brittany. They’re both now, no doubt, picturing Mr Schue though.

Regardless of a lack of competition for Queen, there’s still going to be a fight for King. Sam, Puck. “Finn won’t campaign with me.”

“You don’t even need to.”

Quinn is about to ask why not when Brittany flourishes her notepad again. She settles it evenly on their respective laps.

She’s not fast enough in turning the pages and Quinn manages to read several broken lines in loopy script about golden sand-like skin and words whispered between sheets. Suddenly there’s a lump in her throat.

Brittany finds a blank page and stretches back to find her pen. “Okay-”

Quinn finds herself watching in amusement and affection as Brittany draws a small smiling face in the middle of the page. It’s equip with a small braid and a pineapple hat. It’s Quinn.

The next smiling doodle has straight black hair and kind of looks like-

“I know you’re worried but Tina asked around for me because we heard you talking about it in the bathroom. Were you talking to yourself by the way?” She probably was, voicing her inner monologue about prom queens living longer, but she’s not telling her that.

A third face appears. Brittany shades it in a little and suddenly she’s looking at Mercedes.

“Anyway; Mercedes is totally voting for you. She said it’s ‘cause you’re her sister, or something. I didn’t know you were black Quinn, why didn’t you say?”

Stifling a laugh gets harder when she watches Brittany debate whether or not to shade Quinn’s face in on the page to match Mercedes. “It never came up.” She shakes her head grinning.

Brittany joins her before quickly drawing out a small musical note to represent glee, and a scarily accurate sketch of Coach Sylvester.

“Glee is behind you. Coach Sylvester will probably scare the Cheerios into voting for you.”

“Bribery.” Quinn nods.

Brittany giggles. “They so want us back now that S isn’t there to take any of Coach’s crap.”

That and the fact their trinity of characteristics was the only thing that kept everyone together. Leadership, discipline and guidance. Without them they have no shot at qualifying next year.

“And Finn is swaying the football/basketball vote, besides Karofsky. I don’t know what dancing has to do with voting, unless everyone is practicing for prom.” Brittany lowers her voice in concern. “Finn should probably practice.”

Finn’s doodled head is shaped like a potato.

Quinn groans. Another thing she’d forgotten about. There is no way Finn isn’t going to step on her toes if he doesn’t practice. Brittany steams on.

“Oh! And also, every girl who’s ever had a pregnancy scare is voting for you! So there’s me. Yesterday I was running and me and Mike asked the track team to vote for you because you’re super pretty and your name starts with the letter ‘Q’.”

The track team is represented by Mike and Brittany obviously groups herself in there too. A tiny stork next to her face.

It hits her gently. A warm swell of emotion.

“B.”

“No, I’m sure it’s Q, because Queen starts with a Q as well.” Brittany reassures her. “Fate has totally laid a hand.”

“Brittany.” She exhales happily.

“And if people say no, I’ll offer to make out with them.”

“I have badges.”

“I don’t know. Making out seems funner.” Brittany winks at her playfully which manages to stop Quinn’s eyes from watering for another second. As if to prove her point Brittany points to her lips with a finger, whilst beckoning Quinn to give it a chance.

Quinn laughs and shakes her head. Been down that road before, wine cooler in hand and a surprised expression plastered onto her face for the rest of the night.

“And as for Rachel.”

Her stomach sinks like an anchor.

“What about Rachel?” The ice in her voice crawls back.

“Isn’t she like in the celibacy club with us?” Brittany asks rather than states.

Quinn sees where this is going and attempts to play off the direction of the conversation. “So’s Santana?”

“But she’s not sleeping with Rachel.” Brittany defends. “And Finn’s not in the club, so they can’t be dating.”

Quinn sighs. “B, it doesn’t matter if he’s there or not. She wants him, songs or not, and I can’t let that happen because-”

It takes a few words for Brittany to turn everything she’s said over on it’s head. It would be stunning to listen to if it didn’t shock her so much.

“-Because she’s super talented and you don’t want him to hold her back when she could be showing the world how awesome she is at singing. Or end up hating Finn. Or you.” Brittany adds for good measure. Smirking slightly as she watches Quinn flounder to process it all.

The air gets knocked out of her chest. Oh God, that’s what she said. Underneath the spite and the selfishness, that is actually what she implied to her.

“I like Rachel.” Brittany pauses. “She helped me become America’s Trendiest Teen for Teen Vogue.”

“Damn Reindeer sweaters.” Quinn mumbles. She bought that issue.

“And I think, underneath those sweaters and besides Finn, the person she really is? You wanna be her friend.”

Instant uncomfortable pressure on her chest.

“I don’t.” Deny again.

“Quinn. It’s not like you have to tell her that you like her- just,”

“It’s frustrating okay!” Quinn spells out. It doesn’t explain the panic in her chest and the sudden higher pitch in her voice. To Brittany, with her curved eyebrow, this is hilarious.

“I think you like her...” Brittany trails off. Her twinkling eyes tease. Quinn doesn’t have the energy to continue fighting this battle. Round one to Brittany. “Is that everything?”

She’s incredibly still. She has to be in-case her head starts to shake and she has to ask Brittany that it isn’t everything. And she ends up cornering the girl about what’s up with her to return the favour. She can’t do that yet.

Quinn’s chest deflates. Everything has been addressed. There are other little things, like picking out dresses and times, but everything else. All her worries over Finn and Rachel and herself in general. Brittany has just dissected them like a master surgeon. And made it seem like something simple and not worth worrying about.

Brittany’s knowing grin stills the lingering tears in her eyes. She’s done too much crying for a lifetime, she doesn’t want more.

"Damn,” Quinn’s scratchy voice croaks out. “I should have just gone to prom with you."

Brittany turns to lay on her back. Shrugging her shoulders into her bed she says, "You can if you want. Artie won't mind."

Quinn taps her forgotten pen against her notepad thoughtfully. Rejecting the debate as to whether more people would be likely to vote for her if she was taking Brittany only takes a few seconds. Despite the fact that Brittany is high on everyone’s ‘want that’ list, Quinn thinks Finn would probably take offense. On the other hand, less work for him.

"What about Santana?" She asks, bringing up their friend hesitantly. It’s necessary seen as no one will mention the ‘S’ word around Brittany after they sang for glee club. Probably Artie’s doing. Quinn smirks, jealousy doesn’t suit him.

Brittany’s face pales and there’s a shake in her voice, caused by things Quinn knows she’s in the dark about. "She'd probably mind."

Things she wants to know. Things she wants to draw out of Brittany and cradle in their hands. Just to talk about it. Just enough to release the obvious pressure and tension she can see in Brittany. The weight of something in her chest.

It’s not the right time. Quinn sees the wall blocking that line of discovery. Brittany has closed it off to the world. To anyone that isn’t the one person she wants to talk to.

Distracting her with other methods is the only way. “Hey.” Quinn places her notepad on the side, her lyrics unfinished, and slides to lay next to the sad looking girl. “Would she mind if we were secret dates?”

Sadness slides off her face like water. Suddenly hope shines on her cheeks again. Caused by her words. Happiness for once.

“If we don’t tell her I don’t think she’d mind.”

The whole point of secret dates of course. Quinn smiles, glancing at her from under her eyes. “Well, are you going to ask me?”

Brittany props herself above her on her elbow, grinning at the idea. Quinn sees it flash through her. Energy running from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. Out of this world blue eyes glimmer down on her and Brittany’s teeth gleam out her grin.

Her mind makes up the words that Brittany is about to say to her. Playful bravado and fake confidence because she knows Quinn is going to say yes.

It makes her heart soar. There’s no pressure here. There’s no worry over rejection or planning or popularity. It’s just Brittany. It’s just them making body sized dents in a mattress, laughing over rhyming words and the silliness of serious things. Ribs aching from forgotten use.

Quinn loses her smile the same time Brittany does. Not because the weight of this make-believe crashes away from them.

It’s because Quinn finds herself too surprised to smile at first when Brittany kisses her lightly.

Breathing through her nose makes that innocent wanting noise seen in movies that makes Quinn bite her bottom lip. Followed by the sigh break before Brittany kisses her just a little more.

She’s not really thinking about how she’s cheating on Finn. She’s not thinking about how Brittany is cheating on Artie, or emotionally cheating twofold on Santana. She’s just not thinking.

Kissing her takes it all away. It takes away the lines around her mother’s eyes when she watches Quinn look at the crowns in her closet. It takes away the nervous twitch Finn gets with his mouth every time he sees her now. Makes the unmistakable sound of Rachel sobbing disappear from her memories.

What she must make disappear for Brittany escapes her imagination.

Brittany is laying half on her now, Quinn blushes because she knows for sure Brittany isn’t wearing a bra now, but unwilling to push further over her. It just means that as they stop, to breathe and to realize that -yes, they just did that- Quinn is inches away from Brittany’s piercing eyes. In awe of how much feeling passes over them.

“Secret dates?” Brittany stammers but somehow manages to sound endearing.

Air rushes out. It’s not quite a laugh, nor a smile, but something satisfying in-between. “How can I say no when you asked so nicely?”

Her neck doesn’t even strain as she kisses Brittany’s cheek in confirmation. The girl giggles at her action and rolls back onto her own side of the bed.

“But just to make sure we don’t get in trouble with our not-secret-dates,” Quinn reminds. “You probably shouldn’t mention that to Artie.” She pauses. “Or Santana.”

She leaves Finn off because he’d probably appreciate the mental image anyway.

Brittany nods and reaches for Quinn’s rhyming dictionary. Intent on finding her own words to match.

“Do you want to write a super awesome secret date song?” Brittany asks brightly. Quinn watches her fingers flick through pages ten at a time and buries the side of her burning cheek into the cool pillow.

All she manages is a nod but when she figures out how to do words again she’s advising Brittany not to attempt to rhyme words with grinding or body-shots.

It’s a productive session.

~

 

She finds it in her locker a few days later. Small, delicate and blue. Sitting in a box on display as soon as she opens the door to deposit her science textbooks between classes.

Quinn lightly touches the corsage. She thinks she stops breathing as she does it. A part of it is disappointment because she knows it’s not from Finn. He wouldn’t have the initiative to do something like this for her. He hasn’t even asked the colour of her dress or why she hasn’t bothered him about Prom for days.

To think that when even when she doesn’t hassle him about it, he could still care less.

The other part of her, along with her soaring smug heart, shivers inside her chest. It’s a nice gesture. Too nice for something that was suggested over half finished songs that haven’t yet been made serious. Too nice for something that neither of them probably even meant.

And yet, the very evidence of it in her locker makes gives it meaning.

Quinn finds herself pressing the tips of her fingers to her lips as she peeks out from behind her locker. She doesn’t see Brittany anywhere. As far as anyone knows her friend is still avoiding lockers like they bare a plague on all who uses them.

The small scrap of paper with a chart of illustrated faces tells her otherwise.

A last look at the beautiful corsage brings a smile over her. Perhaps it would be best not to disclose that she’s probably going to enjoy her secret prom date more than her actual prom date.

A crown or not.

 

fin


End file.
